


Watch Your Back

by Melethril



Series: Manual Labor [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War Team Iron Man, Clint Barton is in trouble, Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Prompt Fic, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony also made mistakes, and may also need a hug, and sleep, but he was still an ass on the Raft, he had his reasons for being angry, still Team Iron Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 14:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8059444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melethril/pseuds/Melethril
Summary: There is a reason why Clint Barton was furious with Tony, and it had nothing to do with the Accords. However, they have both messed things up. Now it's both of their jobs to mend a broken friendship.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fr0st6yte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fr0st6yte/gifts).



> Prompt given by Fr0st6yte. 
> 
> There was this one scene in AoU that I think could be the culprit for Clint lashing out against Tony in CA:CW on the Raft.
> 
> This is not so much a friendship piece and more of a 'let's try to get our shit together' fic. Hope you liked it, my dear :)
> 
> Story takes place after "Tinker Tinker, Little Stark" and "Never Walk Again". I may have a Rhodey-Clint conversation planned where Rhodey talks about being close to somebody whose brainpower you can never match.

**Watch Your Back**

 

Tony was tired, exhausted, bone-weary, dead on his feet, just done.

He was struggling to keep on top of everything and it was starting to take a toll on him: trying to keep Ross from prosecuting anything even randomly connected to the Avengers; trying to make Pepper happy by both being the perfect head of R&D (they were currently revolutionizing prosthetics, clean energy and electronics simultaneously) and not showing her how much he missed her by his side (Happy was better for her, he knew that, so all he could do was support her) and keeping their friendship alive; making sure the Accords did not end up as a draconic measure to punish anyone that was born different (thanks, Steve, you were a great help), his own waning personal finances as a result of the financial support he had given the Avengers (there was no chance in hell that the Board with a capital ‘B’ or Pepper would ever allow SI to be an official sponsor of the Avengers even before Sokovia)… He did not know how long he would be able to keep this pace up. Thankfully, he had Rhodey – his guardian angel, the light of his life, the best fucking person on this miserable planet who had never given up despite multiple setbacks and considerable pain on the road to recovery. He was not quite there yet, but the nerves (thanks to an artificial bridge across the spine lesion) were firing again, and he had been able to build up some muscle in his legs ever since ( _still need to look for a way to repair long-term damage; Rhodey’s fine but most people have been handicapped for months and months or even years. Talk to Dr. Michael Raymond and Dr. Helen Cho about neural transmitters and repair mechanisms)_ , and he had full faith in Tony that this would work. He was currently taking a break from War Machine, but he fully intended on going back into the suit (which had been the cause for another panic attack; Tony could barely stand to look at the Iron Man armor at the moment).

Deep in thought, he entered the penthouse.

“Friday, lights please,” he muttered.

And was very much awake a second later when she did not respond. There was someone in his tower – good enough to disable Friday. His hand quickly slipped into his pocket and he alerted Rhodey with a flick of his finger.

_Intruder alert. Don’t call the police. Bring Vision with you. Be careful._

“Hi, may I offer you a drink?” asked Tony, forcing himself to sound nonchalant.

The lights turned on revealing Hawkeye sitting in a chair.

“Boss, I’m calling the police,” said Friday, sounding distressed.

“No, Friday, it’s fine.”

“Boss…”

“Tell Rhodey it’s Barton, but other than that, don’t call anyone.”

“As you wish…” she said unhappily.

“Thanks, girl. The offer still stands,” said he, addressing Barton.

“Where are Laura and the kids?” was the only reply he received. “What did you do to them?”

There was no weapon in his hand, but Tony was not fooled. If he made the wrong move, it would be over and despite how much his life tired him, he was not ready to give it up just yet.

“In a safe location. Ross planned to use them as leverage. I disagreed.”

“And whose fault is it that he knew about them in the first place?” the younger man shouted, standing up from Tony’s favorite chair.

Tony was speechless. He did not even know what to say.

Ultimately, his former friend did not give him a chance to speak anyway.

“I shouldn’t be surprised. This is Tony Stark we are talking about, after all,” said he and Tony’s mind was back at that awful conversation on the Raft.

“’Watch your back around him’,” said Tony, tired, heartbroken. However, his mind had always been quicker than lightning, which – according to Pepper – made it difficult for people to argue with him because he could twist a conversation faster than most people could follow. This time, his mind replayed everything that happened, and heartbreak was replaced by fury. “Before you blame me for everything that has gone wrong in recent years, let me answer your question. Have you ever thought that maybe, just… maybe, when Romanoff and Rogers dumped all that damn information on SHIELD on the Internet that some personal information leaked? ‘Clinton ‘Clint’ Barton; Designation: Hawkeye; Association: SHIELD, Avengers (member, see file ‘Avenger Initiative’); Department (SHIELD): Field agent, handler: Philip ‘Phil’ Coulson (injured), no new handler listed, orders currently given directly by Nicholas ‘Nick’ Fury (director) and Maria Hill (second in command); Martial Status: Married to Laura Barton, residence: classified (see Documents 1547749.2357.356 and 2464685.3457.234, code CBHE)’. I have spent months trying to keep some of the world’s best hackers, shady governments, criminals and other people who would love to see us dead from getting their hands on the information. I spent so much time protecting the information that I did not actually _see_ it, including stuff that concerned me! Stuff I should have… would have wanted to…” Tony’s voice failed and it took years of public relations training to keep him from crying in this very moment. He sounded hoarse as he continued, “I didn’t know that the military struck the second it was out, looking specifically for information on the Avengers… If Steve and Natasha had given me a heads-up I could have… I think I…I know you think I’m scum, Barton, but even I would never let children come to harm.”

“Tell that to Sokovia and all those godforsaken towns where your weapons wrecked havoc. Remember the Maximoffs?” replied Barton coldly, and Tony did not even try to hide the vicious flinch.

* * *

Ironically, Laura’s voice (the little angel on his shoulder) told him to ‘ _quit being an ass, Clint’._

He had never thought about those documents; had never thought what SHIELD actually knew about him. He probably should have.

“Tell me, Barton,” said Stark, looking broken and as not-Tony as he had ever seen him. “Was there a scenario, some freak accident where we wouldn’t end up here today? How did we get here?”

He looked genuinely confused, and Clint was _hurt_. What had deeply fractured their camaraderie and budding friendship, even brotherhood, had not even been a blip on the genius’ radar. Of course!

“Not sending me away like a toddler, perhaps?” he suggested nonchalantly.

“What?” Stark frowned and Clint got to see the first glimpse of Tony Stark out of his depth. It was not as glorious as it should have been.

“Before you and Bruce were playing mad scientists again to create vision. You asked me to go check on Natasha; you sent me away, like I could not decide for myself! Like you were afraid I would stop you, perhaps. You did not even give me the chance to have your back!”

Tony’s eyes widened. Of course he remembered now; the guy had an eidetic memory (and a few more on top of that) after all.

“What… That…”

He laughed. Clint had heard this kind of laughter before, but could not place it; until he remembered Ultron’s first appearance and To-Stark’s reveal that JARVIS was dead (he had liked JARVIS; he had been cool). He had been furious at Stark’s cold-heartedness back then. Now? He could see a badly damaged man on the verge of hysterics.

“Oh God… oh my…I knew we sucked at communication but this… This is pretty much a prime example of failure to talk things out if I ever saw one, I… Clint,” he began softly. “If I would have told you that I planned to help Bruce create a neural interface to upload JARVIS’ consciousness and code into the shell of a fully functional android entity, what would you have said?”

“Huh?” He got angry at his own reflexive response, and quickly continued, “So, I’m too damn stupid for that shit.”

“You are not stupid!” countered Tony sharply. He looked angry now. “Damn it, Clint, you are smart, you are strong, you can calculate the trajectory of a bullet with a speed that I can’t hope to imitate even with the help of the suit! You are brilliant, but… You could not have made the fully formed decision to back me up. The only one who could have are Bruce, JARVIS and Dr. Cho as well as about three more people on this planet! I know you would have stood by me, but I never would have asked you to do that out of sheer loyalty instead of knowing what’s actually happening and why, and the potential consequences of that decision.”

“Sometimes faith and loyalty is all we can give.”

“And the man I have loved all my life hated me to the point he planned my demise and then literally ripped the arc reactor from my chest. Give me a break, Clint, if my godfather could not follow me blindly, who the hell would?”

Something about this conversation made Clint’s heart hurt. It told a lot about Tony.

“It still hurts, you know.”

“I know.”

“But I get it. I guess I was… I was out of line on the Raft, I thought you planned this.”

Tony just stared at him, “Why would I want you to be there? I tried everything to keep you from it short of breaking the Accords I just signed, which I did the minute I saw you there, by the way! I should have told you, but there was no time and you…”

“I stood by you, remember? That day you created Vision.”

“I know.”

“Against Steve.”

Tony looked away and blinked rapidly.

“I know.”

“All you had to do was call.”

“Why did you come?”

The ‘ _why choose them_ ’ was left unsaid.

“Because I was afraid that I would get prosecuted for Loki,” Clint replied. “Because Steve asked me to. Because Wanda needed me and she’s my baby sister in a way. Her brother died for me, now I’m there for her. That’s the deal. And you locked her away.”

“To protect her, but… I guess I should have been more clear about this. Did you read the Accords?”

Clint looked away, “I have not had the chance.”

Tony nodded sadly, “Anybody ever told you that your faith in people is a bit on the foolish side?”

“Laura and Natasha every other day,” the archer replied, and he felt like something between them started to mend a little.

“She’s furious, you know.”

This time it was Clint’s turn to say, “I know.”

“There will be a chopper waiting for you in ten minutes; untraceable. There is a route to get you to Laura and the kids. Nobody will know. Ross won’t even know you were ever here.”

“Tony…” began the archer, completely speechless. They had both fucked up, sure, but Tony’s easy acceptance was hard to swallow. “Anybody ever told you that you forgive the people you care about way too easily?”

“Pepper, a few times,” answered the billionaire; his eyes a little too bright and shining with unshed tears. “JARVIS too, but mostly Rhodey. There isn’t anybody else, really.”

Ex-girlfriend, an AI and his brother/best friend; not a very long list of people.

“You are wrong you know; Laura wouldn’t have accepted your help if she didn’t like you; Vision is with you and he’s practically a saint. Bruce is just dealing with his shit, but he’s there too; and me.”

Tony smiled, and it seemed real for the first time tonight.

“Okay, Barton. You should go, don’t want to miss your flight. However, if you ever disable my AI again, I will put security measures in place that will fry your ass off when you crawl through the ventilation ducts, though,” he warned, half-joking but definitely a little angry. “And I’m… sorry for putting cold facts and information before… the other stuff.”

Clint nodded. They were not okay, but perhaps, they would be.

If Laura did not kill him first.


End file.
